This all feels familiar from various Dickens stories—the orphan, the orphan’s patrons, the illusions, the unfriendly...
In post–World War II England, an orphan named Reggie Rainbow struggles to make ends meet as a “disappearance boy”—the invisible helper of a struggling illusionist.
Reggie is first introduced as an orphan standing nearly naked in rags on a railroad track, hoping that if he dies he will be reunited with his dead mother, who he imagines is an angel. Instead, he’s whisked off the rails; the next time we see him after this dramatic, Dickensian setup, he’s a young adult on his way to work. His unusual job is to hide in small contraptions to help make the illusionist Mr. Brookes’ female assistant successfully vanish from the audience’s view. Unfortunately, London’s interest in magic shows has subsided, and Mr. Brookes fires his female assistants with regularity. There are long scenes describing precisely how the tricks work (or fail to work), and instead of being revealing, they feel procedural and tedious. The narrator rather unsuccessfully addresses the reader in the second person, as if we are audience members watching the show: “As you can see, the Lady is indeed missing.” This creates a flatness in the prose, removing elements of surprise from the story. Reggie looks like he might be out of work, but things turn around, and Mr. Brookes picks up a gig in a new place, Brighton, and a new, more self-assured female assistant named Pamela, who takes the job thinking, “How hard can being made to disappear be?” Unfortunately, Pamela, like those who preceded her, finds herself under Mr. Brookes’ thumb. It’s Reggie’s friendship that saves the day when he uses a bit of magic he’s learned to turn the tables on his unkind employer.
This all feels familiar from various Dickens stories—the orphan, the orphan’s patrons, the illusions, the unfriendly businessmen, the saviors—and the 1950s setting isn’t enough to refresh the great expectations.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62040-725-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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